[humanmarkup-comment] Fwd: Primary, or 'meta-features', of Cultures

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Since i did not receive this, I am forwarding it to the list for 
inclusion in our discussions about Requirements. If you have already 
received it, by all means, feel free to disregard it.

Ciao,
Rex

>Delivered-To: alias-outgoing-rexb@starbourne.com@outgoing
>X-Sender: cognite@zianet.com
>Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 13:08:05 -0700
>To: rexb@starbourne.com
>From: cognite@zianet.com
>Subject: Primary, or 'meta-features', of Cultures
>X-Rcpt-To: <rexb@starbourne.com>
>X-DPOP: DPOP Version 2.4a
>Status: U
>
>Rex, if you find that this earlier message did not go thru to the HumanML
>discussion for formulating the Requirements document, appreciate your
>forwarding it; kind of you to
>offer.  It's a quick overview of how Culture descriptors may fit into HumanML
>markup and computer applications that might use it.   SC
>
>---------
>
>Len Bullard, in recent HumanML discussion, quotes a manual suggesting that:
>
>"Culture is a group's shared set of beliefs, values, and assumptions about
>what's
>important. As a ... leader, you must be aware of cultural factors in three
>contexts:
>
>o You must be sensitive to the different backgrounds of your people.
>o You must be aware of the culture of the ...[people]... in which your
>organization is operating.
>o You must take into account your partner's customs and traditions" for
>people to
>work together, communicating well.
>
>-- These truisms would seem to call for focus of HumanML on CULTURAL
>characteristics
>as well.
>
>In order to incorporate Culture attributes into the proposed Requirements
>document:
>
>         A sub-section could address the concern with application of HumanML
>markup for
>COMMUNICATION, be it with purposes of diplomacy, business, personal,
>artistic, or
>other expression.
>
>         Only general pointers describing the nature of this focus might be
>needed for the present document, since it is to provide the abstraction that
>will be extended for specific
>events and apps.  For example:
>         Cultural features are oft outlined in anthropological works.  A good
>outline,
>keeping in mind the intended application of markup in computer and other
>communication/work,
>would seem to be a starting place for a beginning list of the type of things
>in the
>cultural domain that would be considered for HumanML markup.  There would be
>things
>like
>         Language, including [formality] Register
>         Roles of interlocutor(s)-- in the discourse, in the community; incl.
>audience
>         Genre
>         Purposiveness -- beit explicit, implicit, ...
>         Style(s); novelty
>         Temporality -- Epoch, season, daytime, placement and connection, if
>any, relative to                 contextual work/holidays, and clocktime
>         Locale(s), at various grains of description ("zoom" levels)
>         Frames of reference -- group(s) of people in various roles expected,
>literary and
>                 oral traditions (including musical framing), ...
>         Manner of delivery
>         Media used
>
>INTERPRETATION -- specifically, interpretation of the significance of the
>communication -- would be what the markup is developed in aid of.  We are
>assuming its XML encodings will be used in COMPUTER applications designed
>for increasing precision in communication (per the stated a principia
>agenda), even across interpretive contexts.
>
>         Note that:  As party to the communication, the receiver's cultural
>characteristics interact with those of the original communique ("document"
>or anthropological "artifact" in some generalized sense).  There may be more
>than one Locale, Temporality, ....
>         Thus parsing applications using the XML markup may well entail
>dealing with MULTIPLE sets of condition descriptors.  These computerized
>interpreter-parsers would be unlike formal-language parsers, in that they
>would have to deal with open dynamic systems.  They would be processor
>programs that lace together multiple, changing sets of descriptive markup.
>More specifically, the processors for some renderings might differ depending
>on who and what was involved in the connection between originator and
>receiver. (As a case in point, delivery media and receiving media 
>may differ.) 
>         Further note that a major consideration in this endeavor is
>maintaining accuracy, with appropriate labeling of imputed content, as
>opposed to literal/explicit and intended content of the
>signal-within-context bundle itself.
>
>SC
>                                                 copyright 3/2002
>Dr. S. Candelaria de Ram
>
>
>
>        
>


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